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Hop Data Juggler: Rearrange ExpressionEngine Data Any Way You Like

An illustrated duck juggles circles containing form elements. Hop Data Juggler: Toss data from field to field with ease

You designed and built a solid database structure for an ExpressionEngine website a few years ago and it’s been working great! But now you find you want to use a different field type than you chose originally, or use data from a custom field in a new way, or merge or split two fields. That means migrating data from one field to another, and maybe changing the format while you’re at it.

This is the kind of thing that requires some fancy database queries and direct manipulation of the database, and probably some nail-biting for good measure.

Well, not today! Today, Hop Studios is excited to introduce Hop Data Juggler, the first ExpressionEngine add-on that lets you [*cough*] juggle data between fields with ease (and no SQL queries!).

Use Hop Data Juggler’s easy interface to create routines that identify which fields you want to move data from and to, and which channels to make the changes in. You can choose to overwrite data in the destination field, or append data as you merge one field into another. You can even use basic ExpressionEngine template codes and formatting to transform the data as it is moved!

For instance, you could write a routine that transfers data from an old-style EE field (from the exp_channel_data table) to a new one (exp_channel_data_field_x). Or you can merge several redundant fields (i.e. blog_body, news_body, software_body, etc.) into a single {body} field that then can be used across multiple channels.

You can juggle between most ExpressionEngine fields:

  • Move date field data into a text input
  • Transform a select menu into checkboxes or radio buttons
  • Merge two relationship fields into one
  • Use a transformation to convert a grid field into a simple textarea (but note, you cannot use Fluid, Grid, or File Grid fields as destination fields) (...yet)

If you’re a long-time ExpressionEngine developer, you’re probably already pretty excited. But we haven’t even gotten to the best part: Hop Data Juggler lets you do a Dry Run with any of your routines! A Dry Run lets you see what your routine will do before you’ve actually moved any data. We’ll show you the results using real entry data, so that you know if you need to tweak your routine logic or can go ahead and juggle your data.

Hey, we like SQL queries as much as the next web development shop, but we like easier, faster, and safer even better. And we aren’t alone — Hop Data Jugger won the Best Add-on Award at the EEConf Fall Summit 2021!

Try out Hop Data Juggler today!

 

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